I've
added some menu screens from two of the films in Warner Home Video's
Horror Classics box sets (see News entries for the 5th
of September and the 14th of
September for more information). You can see the menu screens for Night
of the Eagle here,
and for Masque of the Red Death here.

Having
now seen the disc, I can add that Masque of the Red Death is not
in the promised 2.35:1 ratio, it's a pan-and-scanned full-frame
presentation, which, of course, makes it completely worthless. A far
better bet is to buy the Region 1 double-bill from MGM (which pairs Masque
with another Corman / Poe movie, The Premature Burial). This
leaves horror fans with a bit of a problem, of course, in that none of the
films in the Horror Classics set is available separately, so anyone
wanting Night of the Eagle or Zoltan Hound of Dracula will
be stuck with a useless copy of Masque of the Red Death. (A more
likely scenario is that people who wanted Masque and Night of
the Eagle would now be lumbered with a duff copy of Masque and
a copy of the terrible Zoltan Hound of Dracula that they
never wanted in the first place!) You can discuss this release in this
thread at Roobarb's DVD Forum.

25th
September

It's
been eons since the last Zeta Minor review was added to the site, but I've
got a doozy for you today: the first review of Fox's UK X-Men 2 DVD.

First
up are the menus for Fox's forthcoming X-Men 2 2-disc special
edition DVD. You can see the menu screens here.
Details of the disc can be found here.
A full review will follow shortly.

Next
are some grabs from the very cool Alien Quadrilogy box set trailer
that's featured on the X-Men 2 DVD. The trailer is full of flash cuts and quick
transitions, so it's difficult to tell if there's anything new in it, but
these grabs should at least whet your appetite until Fox finally release
the full specifications for the set. You can see the trailer grabs here.

The
Hammer on DVD guide has been
updated, with the latest information from DD Video.

23rd
September

The
fourth and final Futurama box set will be released on November the
17th by Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment. RRP for the set is
£39.99.

As
before, each episode will be accompanied by a commentary track.

Here's
how the four-disc set breaks down:

DISC
ONE:

Episodes:
Kif Gets Knocked Up A Notch, Leela's Homeworld, Love
& Rocket, Less Than Hero and A Taste of Freedom.

Features:
Gallery for Kif Gets Knocked Up A Notch; deleted scenes from each
episode; international clip from Love & Rocket.

DISC
TWO

Episodes:
Bender Should Not Be Allowed on TV, Jurassic Bark, Crimes
of the Hot, Teenage Mutant Leela's Hurdles and The Why of
Fry.

Fox
is also releasing a new compilation of The Simpsons on November the
3rd. Christmas With The SimpsonsIt will contain five seasonal
episodes: The Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire, Mr Plow,
Miracle on Evergreen Terrace, Grift of the Magi and She
of Little Faith. The disc will also contain a Mr Burns-themed bonus
featurette. RRP is £15.99.

The
BFI are going to release two volumes of short films made by Avant-Garde
filmmaker Peter Greenaway on the 20th of October. The Director has
supervised the re-mastering for the discs, and has also contributed new
filmed introductions, as well as allowing access to his paintings,
drawings and designs.

Volume
1 features A Walk Through H, H is for House, Windows,
Intervals, Dear Phone and Water Wrackets, as well as
artwork galleries spanning the years 1968 to 1978, notes on unmade
projects and hidden features. Volume 2 contains Vertical
Features Remake and The Falls, Greenaway's remarkable account
of a mysterious phenomena which warps the laws of nature. Both films
feature music by regular Greenaway contributor Michael Nyman. The second
disc will house the galleries covering the years 1975 to 1990, and will
also contain documents from The Falls and more hidden features. (Volume
1 runs for 87 minutes, with 16 minute of extra features. Volume 2 runs
for 224 minutes, with 7 minutes of bonus materials). RRP for each disc is
£19.99. The BFI will release Greenaway's The Draughtsman's Contract early
in 2004.

You
can discuss these Peter Greenaway discs in this
thread at Roobarb's DVD Forum. Here's a look at the sleeves...

22nd
September

There's
a new competition for you to have a bash at today, where you can win a
copy of The X-Files - The Complete Seventh Season DVD box set,
which is released to buy today. We have three copies to give away,
courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment. Click on the banner,
above, to enter.

The set contains all
twenty-two episodes of the seventh season of The X-Files, on
six-discs. The season included some good high concept stories (X-Cops,
The Goldberg Variations, Hollywood A.D. and Je Souhait,
for example) among the increasingly run-of-the-mill escapades that were
beginning to prevail. Bonus features include audio commentary tracks on
three episodes (First Person Shooter, by Chris Carter, all
things, by Gillian Anderson and Je Souhaite, by the
ever-reliable Vince Gilligan); The Truth About Season 7 (a
twenty-minute featurette); ten deleted scenes (which can be branched back
into the episodes); thirteen special effects breakdown mini-featurettes;
profiles of A.D. Skinner (from the Biogenesis compilation, 6m) and
Samantha Mulder (from the Closure compilation, 5m) and a whole
bunch of TV trailers. As usual, the episodes are presented in 1.78:1
anamorphic widescreen, with 2.0 audio.

The
Man From U.N.C.L.E. DVD
box set competition closed yesterday. Congratulations to the lucky
winners: Luke Goldsmith, Liselotte Soudain and Ed Perkins,
and my sincere thanks to Warner Home Video, who provided the prizes. The
answer to the question "Which actor played agent Napoleon Solo?"
was, of course, Robert Vaughn.

I've
added a few new sleeves to the Alternate
Reality section, the archive of rejected or orphaned VHS and DVD
sleeves. Digging out my folder of "S" sleeves to look for the
two sleeves for the unreleased David Jason sitcom A Sharp Intake of
Breath, I also found another abandoned Steptoe and Son design
and an early version of Alexei Sayle's Stuff. If you have any
comments about the Alternate Reality gallery they can be added to this
thread at Roobarb's DVD Forum.

I've
made a few updates to the Hammer on DVD
guide, since the major overhaul at the weekend. My thanks to those people
who have provided feedback, additions or corrections.

Unless
explicitly stated, DVD screen captures used in the reviews are for illustrative
purposes only, and are not intended to be accurate representations of the DVD
image. While
screen captures are generally in their correct aspect ratio, there will often
have been changes made to the resolution, contrast, hue and sharpness, to
optimise them for web display.